


Coffee

by braingenius



Category: Chipspeech
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Slice of Life, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 09:38:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15905694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/braingenius/pseuds/braingenius
Summary: A short drabble fic about a short, awkward encounter. Second-person.





	Coffee

They were almost human.

 

Certainly it seemed human enough of them to enter the coffee shop. They came in through the front door and got in line as so may others did. They looked around as they waited to be served. They had pale skin, platinum hair, and odd taste in fashion, but that wasn’t terribly unexpected, not in this town. And yet there was something off about them. The way they stood in line, shifting their weight and scanning the shop, seemed almost…calculated. As if they were playing a background role in a movie scene and weren’t quite comfortable with acting. Something about their gray eyes, piercing and inscrutable. But they were human enough. They waited in line, periodically stepping forward, their gunmetal eyes occasionally lingering on a coffee cake or a music download voucher. They were no one remarkable. A customer among customers.

 

_“I’ll take a large coffee.”_

 

Their voice gave them away. That was not a human voice. It was a mannequin of a voice—an uncanny, hollow, plastic sound, too smooth and too depersonalized to belong to anybody. It was nobody’s voice. They were nobody. Not quite.

 

Android. That’s what they must be.

 

“A…a drip coffee, you mean?” You manage to find your balance fairly quickly after that initial shock of inhumanity. You’ve dealt with androids before—a lot of the more well-off people in the town had personal assistant androids, and it wasn’t an uncommon task for them to buy coffee for their “bosses”. (Of course they weren’t being paid to do it, but “boss” felt more comfortable to the general public than “owner” as a term to describe their role in these relationships.)

 

 _“That’s fine.”_ Strange. The android didn’t seem to much care one way or the other. Without exception, all the other PAAs who’d ordered from you had extremely specific orders from their bosses, as they were designed to complete the task of ordering coffee as efficiently as possible. This android…didn’t seem to have a specific order. Hm, maybe they just needed a firmware upgrade. It would be good to contact the “boss” about this.

 

“May I ask who sent you, please?” Even though courtesy wasn’t exactly needed for interacting with PAAs, it just felt right to keep up the aesthetics of professionalism. After all, you were still on the clock.

 

The android tilted their head. _“I’m sorry?”_

 

“May I ask who sent you, please.” You repeat yourself more slowly this time. Voice recognition was still a dodgy art, but at least the AIs were getting better at filtering out that which they didn’t understand.

 

_“…I came myself. Nobody sent me.”_

 

…That was NOT the response you expected. And once again you feel that subliminal stomach drop of witnessing the uncanny. There was something behind those gray eyes. Something that looked like…like a sort of nervous exhaustion. Something like days of sleepless nights filled with hours of restless thoughts. If you didn’t know any better, you’d wonder if you’d insulted them.

 

“…Um, so…large drip coffee…would you like to try our Colombian roast?” At this point, the situation was so baffling and unsettling to you that there was really nothing to do but go through all the corporate motions.

 

 _“Sure. Why not?”_ Another almost-human answer. Something wasn’t right. The air around you grew cold as you gazed at something which should not be—an android with…if not a “self”, then something like it.

 

“…who ARE you?”

 

 _“Excuse me?”_ Their tone was polite. Like an android’s. And yet you couldn’t help but wonder once again if you’d insulted them.

 

“…I mean, what name should I put down on your order?” A feeble attempt at a save, but…it’s not like anyone’s going to care. Everyone just wants to get coffee.

 

_“Oh. Just…put down ‘Dee’.”_

 

*************

 

The android sat alone at a table by the window with their coffee and a book. Periodically they’d look up from the book to glance, possibly nervously, out the window. After a couple seconds, they’d go back to the book.

 

Not once did they touch their coffee. Why would they? They weren’t human.


End file.
